9 Things That Made My Life Better Last Quarter (Oct. – Dec.2022)
2022 ended with a busy three months, but they weren’t so busy that they precluded little things that brought some joy. Here are a few of them:
brushing my teeth before I shower
Sometimes, I delay showering at night until it’s way too late, and then I don’t want to do the rest of my go-to-bed routine and wind up tired and cranky. These months, I learned that I can trick myself into getting everything done faster by brushing my teeth before I shower. Brushing my teeth is one of my least favourite parts of getting ready for bed, so knowing it’s already done gets me into the rest of my routine faster.
Once I realized that I’d have to bring lunch to work and eat it during class breaks, I decided to give these Thermos jars a try. They’re not perfect–as you’d expect, you can’t keep crispy things crispy, and pasta gets overdone–but they’re a great way to keep a hot meal hot all the way through my commute and workday.
My bad arm is still bad, no matter what I do, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try my best to mitigate the symptoms. This style of mouse helps me hold my hand and wrist in positions that cause less pain than a typical mouse. Probably the highest praise I can give this one in particular is that I don’t notice it most of the time, which is better than, you know, noticing my wrist hurting.
Heartstopper by Alice Oseman (YA graphic novel series, 2019-present)
You probably don’t need me to tell you what this queer teen romance is about (thanks, Netflix), but just in case: Nick and Charlie are two high-school boys who fall for each other. Even though the series deals with some tough stuff (getting outed, bullying, mental health), its tone is always gentle, hopeful, and affirming. It’s a great ugh-this-pandemic-never-ends, cold-winter read.
Some Girls Do by Jennifer Dugan (YA romance novel, 2021)
Yes, another queer teen romance: Morgan and Ruby are two high-school girls who fall for each other. This book also addresses the pressure of feeling like you have to behave and feel a certain way to be the “right” kind of girl, which, somewhat naively, I didn’t know was one of my story-buttons until the plot pressed it. I like that both main characters make overzealous mistakes in the way we all do as adolescents, and the story asks them to face the consequences of those mistakes without condemning either character for being fallible.
Through the magic of The Internet (and my child self’s proto-academic habit of taking notes from non-fiction sources and actually writing down their bibliographic information… listen, no one asked you to judge), I identified some of the library books I remember loving as a kid. Through this site, I was able to buy them second-hand with hardly any fuss. I love the idea of a sustainable and reliable used book shop like this, and I’m looking forward to trying them again in the future for more out-of-print* favourites.
beeswax candles
I bought beeswax Chanukah candles from Etsy this year as a little indulgence, and while they didn’t quite fit properly in my chanukkiah (too narrow), I enjoyed their quality. There’s something so comfy and home-y feeling about beeswax candles. I’m thinking of buying a couple bigger ones from a local seller to warm up upcoming winter nights.
Harvestella by Square Enix (video game, 2022)
This is an action-RPG/farming sim, and, while it doesn’t do any of these things superlatively well, the elements are fun enough as a combo that I decided to buy the game after playing the demo. You play as Ein, an anime protagonist whose pronouns and general body type you can choose at the start of the game and then completely forget about later because they change nothing about gameplay or NPC interactions. Like any self-respecting JRPG, Harvestella includes vague references to Western religious mythology, antagonists who want to destroy humanity/the planet (… or DO THEY???), and suspicion about the ways technology interferes with the natural world.
Also, this is, like, the only game ever where I got the “good” ending first try without consulting online guides instructing me how to tediously navigate through set-pieces/dialogue trees.
cotton sweaters
I have finally come to terms with the fact that I can’t be trusted to launder wool sweaters. After attempting to wear the two nice ones I owned to work only to find that I’d definitely shrunk them at some point, I bought a couple cotton replacements (from Tentree). My life is much cozier with far fewer accidentally exposed wrists and forearms.
* I’m fortunate to be in a position where I can buy new books, which lines up with my goal of best supporting the authors who wrote them and the companies who publish stuff I want to see more of. So I buy new when I can (not to mention, of course, that there’s no such thing as a used e-book, which is the main format I buy).